03/02/2020 Reachlocal UK Ltd & Anor v Bennett & Ors [2014] EWHC 3405 (QB) (21 October 2014) true, it is highly unlikely that interim injunctions would have been granted, given that the primary cause of action is defamation: see eg Bonnard v Perryman [1891] 2 Ch 269. 31. The meanings pleaded are that the claimants: (a) operate a business, the success of which has been due to the fraudulent deception of customers; (b) are prepared to and do engage in practices which are fraudulent or unethical or contain a level of deception or misrepresentation that amounts to 'trickery'; (c) are prepared to and do actively conceal from their customers the truth as to how much money is being applied towards obtaining Google AdWords; (d) employ people of no talent who have no digital marketing skills. 32. I do not think that I am required, and Mr Singla does not ask me, to consider whether those meanings are apposite, in the sense of being the correct meanings of the words complained of. It seems to me that the claimants are entitled to rely on the judgment and on the terms of CPR 12.11. That may be just as well, because the task of assessing the meaning of a variety of different publications, some of which may have been read or heard by some publishees and others of which may have been read or heard by other publishees, would be a protracted one. However, the claimants' case is that these publications should be seen primarily as a continuum or series of unsolicited publications, because that was the way in which they were sent out to their customers, the object being that every recipient should receive the same message. That case is, of course, established by the judgment, and it does not seem to me that the meaning or meanings pleaded (and, as I believe, established by the judgment) are over-stated. I draw some comfort from the fact that Sir David Eady was prepared to grant interim injunctions in the terms of the pleaded meanings. Liability of defendants 33. It is pleaded that the first defendant is responsible for the publication of the defamatory statements referred to, but that he is liable jointly with the fourth and fifth defendants, who should be regarded as joint authors and/or publishers. That is not an entirely straightforward proposition. The pleaded basis of it is that the fourth defendant has never indicated any dissent from the first defendant's wrongs and has refused to provide undertakings, that she is a director of the fifth defendant and must be taken to know of the publication of the first defendant's correspondence with the claimants' solicitors on the fifth defendant's website, and that the first defendant has stated that he acts with the authority and consent of the owners of the fifth defendant. It certainly does appear that the first defendant acts on behalf of the fifth defendant, even though he is not a registered director, but the grounds advanced as regards the fourth defendant do not appear to me to support the contention that she is liable for the publication of the defamatory material. However, it is pleaded in the alternative that the first, fourth and fifth defendants conspired together to use unlawful means, that is to say the pleaded defamatory words, to harm the claimants. Given that pleaded case of – in effect – joint enterprise, for which the claimants already have judgment, it seems to me that the claimants must in principle be entitled to judgment for damages against the first, fourth and fifth defendants jointly and severally, and against the second defendant, if he exists as a separate person from the first defendant. Second claimant 34. There is a difficulty, although perhaps only a theoretical one, with the position of the second claimant. It is a Netherlands company, and it is the immediate parent of the first claimant. Unlike the first claimant, it does not trade within the jurisdiction. Indeed, I am not clear that it has a function other than as the headquarters and holding company of the European operations of the ReachLocal group. It seems to me perhaps unlikely that anyone to whom any of the written or oral communications complained of was published will have understood those words to refer to the second claimant. That said, it can of course be argued that any defamatory attacks on the ReachLocal business model are likely to have damaging repercussions beyond the immediate impact on the local trading company. But the obvious object of the references to ReachLocal is the first claimant, the entity that traded under that www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2014/3405.html 8/14